t S.S.W. till
six o'clock, when it fell to a calm. At this time Cape Charlotte bore N.
31 deg. W., and Cooper's Island W.S.W. In this situation we found the
variation, by the azimuths, to be 11 deg. 39', and by the amplitude, 11 deg. 12'
E. At ten o'clock, a light breeze springing up at north, we steered to
the south till twelve, and then brought-to for the night.

At two o'clock in the morning of the 20th we made sail to S.W. round
Cooper's Island. It is a rock of considerable height, about five miles
in circuit, and one mile from the main. At this isle the main coast
takes a S.W. direction for the space of four or five leagues to a point,
which I called Cape Disappointment. Off that are three small isles, the
southernmost of which is green, low, and flat, and lies one league from
the cape.

As we advanced to S.W. land opened, off this point, in the direction of
N. 60 deg. W., and nine leagues beyond it. It proved an island quite
detached from the main, and obtained the name of Pickersgill Island,
after my third officer. Soon after a point of the main, beyond this
island, came in sight, in the direction of N. 55 deg. W., which exactly
united the coast at the very point we had seen, and taken the bearing
of, the day we first came in with it, and proved to a demonstration that
this land, which we had taken for part of a great continent, was no more
than an island of seventy leagues in circuit.

Who would have thought that an island of no greater extent than this,
situated between the latitude of 54 deg. and 55 deg., should, in the very height
of summer, be in a manner wholly covered, many fathoms deep, with frozen
snow, but more especially the S.W. coast? The very sides and craggy
summits of the lofty mountains were cased with snow and ice; but the
quantity which lay in the valleys is incredible; and at the bottom of
the bays the coast was terminated by a wall of ice of considerable
height. It can hardly be doubted that a great deal of ice is formed here
in the water, which in the spring is broken off, and dispersed over the
sea; but this island cannot produce the ten-thousandth part of what we
saw; so that either there must be more land, or the ice is formed
without it. These reflections led me to think that the land we had seen
the preceding day might belong to an extensive track, and I still had
hopes of discovering a continent. I must confess the disappointment I
now met with did not affect me much; for, to judge o